You never walked alone
but when you did
we pack of girls would fire the insult
with perfect English.

You smelled of pepper & saucy food & silt.
Prayed to gods who were not Jesus,

were too familiar to our own
muddled blood, the faces who fed us
mashed potatoes & meats & catechism
across rented linoleum,

we shrieked before your known world
could slip past our mouths full of chewing

and find the vulnerable vein that hurt, would blind
if our pack did not run quick enough.

Idrissa Simmonds writing has appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Black Renaissance Noire, Pearls and Event. She is editor of the anthology We Have a Voice: An Anthology of African and Caribbean Student Writing in BC and leads writing workshops through the New York Writers Coalition. She lives in Brooklyn NY.